


The Role of Magician

by HumbleFarmer



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, F/M, Implied abuse, M/M, Post-Dreamer Trilogy, Post-Raven Cycle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23151151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HumbleFarmer/pseuds/HumbleFarmer
Summary: After he graduates from college, Adam finds himself using both new and old skills to help a little girl in his neighborhood. Of course, it never hurts to have a magical boyfriend lend a hand, too.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 7
Kudos: 94





	The Role of Magician

**Cambridge, Massachusetts**

The day before Adam graduated with his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, he rested his head in his boyfriend’s lap with his hands clasped on his stomach. Ronan’s arms were beneath his head as he, too, lounged on the soft spring grass and let the gentle breeze wash over them.

Blue’s legs rested on top of Adam’s, and Gansey, sitting cross-legged, played with her hair. Since she had grown out the length, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from braiding and unbraiding over and over again. The more clips and barrettes to work with, the better.

When Gansey had asked Adam what he wanted to do to celebrate — “The sky’s the limit, anything you want” — Adam had responded that more than anything he wanted to be in a forest. They couldn’t reasonably drive all the way out to Lindenmere the day before his graduation, and Cabeswater now only existed in memory, but they’d chosen a nearby hiking trail. They’d walked the trail normally for a while, and when no other hikers were in sight, they’d plunged off road until they’d found a quiet spot among the trees.

Declan, Jordan, and Matthew would attend the graduation tomorrow along with a good portion of 300 Fox Way. Something which still made Adam feel warm.

_“Mom called to say that they will be a little late — something about a car accident that’s going to happen, I guess — but they won’t miss you walking across the stage.”_

_The place between Adam’s eyes furrowed. “Your mom?”_

_Now Blue looked confused and a little exasperated. “Yes, my mom and Calla and probably Jimmi and Orla, too,” she said. “Did you really think they would miss it?”_

His parents would not be attending, but that was okay. Adam’s real family would be there.

**Boston, Massachusetts**

Adam accepted a position as a file clerk at an esteemed law firm in Boston. While he was fairly certain he wanted to apply to law school, practicality ran in his veins. He decided to work in the file clerk position for six months before applying to the law schools that interested him. He was firm in his choice, but the lines around his eyes relaxed a little when Ronan said he was coming, too.

Ronan had come a long way since his first disastrous trip to Adam’s undergraduate dorm. He could now control the dreaming and fearlessly fall asleep knowing that he would not hurt anyone with the creations of his mind.

Together, they searched for an apartment and agreed on a cute one-bedroom with decent kitchen space. They moved in June, and Adam started work.

He liked his job even as he recognized that he was the least important person in the process. He maintained the files and printed and labeled documents. He waited on the instruction of the paralegals.

But when he had a moment of free time, he studied the forms that he printed, and he familiarized himself with the contents of the files. The cases became maps in his mind, and he followed the landmarks to either an approval or the swamps of denial.

He had chosen a law firm that primarily worked with abused children and spouses who needed to break from an abusive party. He tried not to think about why.

After work, he often met Ronan at this small diner that reminded them of Henrietta. They ordered sodas or tea or sometimes food — Adam had the money for that now even if he was still painfully frugal — and they shared what they had learned from their day. That was how they framed it — what they’d learned. As if they were ancient eldritch beings exploring the throes of mortality for the first time.

“I’ve started learning the city. I take walks. But not just the streets, you know?” Ronan said and took a large bite of his burger.

Adam nodded. He was quickly learning that cities were far more than the roads and buildings.

“I met this musician who always plays on this one corner. He used to work in business, but he said he didn’t like the speed of that life, so he started doing this to slow down. And this little girl who likes to play with these toy horses on the stairs of her apartment building. And two teams who always meet at the basketball court for rematch after rematch.”

“Ronan Lynch,” Adam said, “you’re becoming friendly.”

“Don’t blaspheme,” Ronan chided. “What are you learning at work now?”

“Officially, how to send out approval packages. Unofficially, I’m going through the files of failed cases, trying to figure out what consistently makes them fail.”

“And?”

Adam shrugged, took a sip of his cherry coke. “Usually lack of evidence or if the abuser’s well-liked in town.”

“Bastard,” Ronan said. Adam wasn’t sure who, specifically, Ronan was calling a bastard, or if he was just addressing the whole situation, but either way, he agreed.

They went to museums and walked through the city. On the weekends, they drove out to the countryside to breathe in the forests. They started to try new things — a concept that had seemed like a luxury to them both.

When Gansey, Blue, and Henry came to visit, they all pitched in to make calzones and cookies together. The kitchen was cramped with five people, but they made it work, and then they all helped to clean the mess.

“You fixing all the laws yet?” Henry asked Adam.

Adam offered a small smile. There was a time when he would have shrugged off anything Henry Cheng had said to him, but too much had happened. They were all different people.

“It’s slow going when you have essentially no power at all,” Adam said.

“Stupid,” Henry said. “You’re smarter than the lot of them. They should just put you in charge now. Forget law school.”

“While I appreciate the sentiment, I think others might disagree.”

“I don’t,” Gansey said. “You should be in charge.”

“In a checks and balances system,” Blue amended.

“Nah, dictatorship,” Ronan reasoned.

Ronan rinsed the dishes while Adam placed them in the dishwasher. A part of him still marveled at the simple luxury of a dishwasher instead of washing dishes with hands burning with cracked skin. Around them, Blue and Henry wiped down the counters, and Henry swept. The cookies were in the oven.

Once they were ready, they moved to the living room where they drank coffee and ate cookies, and something fluttered in Adam’s stomach. He had spent so much time with these people whom he loved so much, but so rarely in a setting when they were not actively in peril. There was still something deep inside him that was waiting for the next crisis, but for now, he squashed that voice down and let himself enjoy this.

**Philadelphia, Pennsylvania**

There was so much that was still new to Adam. Poverty in both money and time had always left Adam making do with the essentials, and anything outside of food and shelter became luxury. Now he only worked with one job, and he had weekends. He was out of school, so there was nothing to study. He had a line in his budget for recreation and the money to spare.

So he and Ronan took a weekend trip to Philadelphia. They took in the sights, ate lunch at a restaurant, and wandered the downtown with ice cream.

Sometimes they held hands.

They went to a park and leaned against a tree. Ronan glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and then he took a small nap with his head leaned against Adam’s shoulder. When he woke, he opened his cupped hands to reveal a small firefly that glowed all the colors at once. The pink of a rosebud, the red of berries in a tart, the orange of a sunset.

“One of your best,” Adam said.

Ronan gently handed the firefly over to Adam who carefully made sure his hold would not hurt the small creature.

“I’ve been practicing,” Ronan said. “At first I could only manage two or three colors. I gave one that was blue, pink, and purple to the little girl who likes to play outside the apartment building.”

“She’s there a lot,” Adam said.

“Yeah.”

**Boston, Massachusetts**

One day, as he was walking home from work, Adam found Ronan sitting on the front steps with the little girl. She was telling him the names of her toy horses, but when she noticed Adam, she grew quiet and started to shrink in on herself. Adam recognized the gesture for what it was, and his heart ached. He stopped a healthy distance away from them both.

“Hello.”

Ronan looked up, smiled. “Hey Adam.” He turned to the little girl. “Lucy, this is my boyfriend. Adam, Lucy.”

Once she realized that Adam was an extension of Ronan, her tension eased a little, and she offered a small smile.

Adam sat down on the steps as well, lower, still giving her distance. “Can you tell me about them?” he asked and pointed to the toy horses.

She started with just the names, but she became more comfortable as she talked about each horse’s favorite snack and who was friends with who and the party the horses were all going to attend later. Eventually, a woman in her thirties came down to fetch Lucy, and she glanced suspiciously at Ronan and Adam before apparently deciding she didn’t care. Lucy reluctantly followed her mother into the apartment building.

Ronan and Adam walked home and made dinner together. As they lay next to each other that night, Adam whispered, “Is it her dad?”

“Yeah,” Ronan said.

“Any evidence?”

It was easier to talk in legal terms. Was there anything to bring before a court of law to make sure the girl is safe and protected in the future? Not what he really wanted to ask. Was she haunted? Would she be able to grow into adulthood without these scars, both invisible and not, staying with her forevermore?

“Not that I can see,” Ronan said. A pause. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Adam said.

And he was. He curled into the arms of his boyfriend, and he fell asleep. The next day, he would go to work at his job where he made good money, helped people, and furthered his career. This weekend, they would go home to Henrietta to celebrate Blue’s mom’s birthday. His life was so much better than he had ever dreamed or deserved.

But even despite all that, there was a part of Adam that never stopped aching, and he didn’t want that little girl to have that burden, too.

**Henrietta, Virginia**

Maura’s birthday was unlike any party Adam had attended in all of college, but it was exactly what he would have expected from 300 Fox Way.

The kitchen overflowed with cookies, cakes, pies, twisted pastries with various glazes. There were three separate punch bowls — one alcoholic, one normal, and one that would supposedly make even the non-clairvoyant see visions for an hour. Tarot cards flashed as deft hands wove out Maura’s future for the next year of her life, and children ran screaming from room to room with noisemakers and ribbons tied to sticks.

Henry immediately made himself at home, and he helped Jimmi pull yet another batch of homemade pretzels from the oven. Gansey and Ronan caught up on the couch, and Calla and Blue shoved a large terribly-wrapped gift into Maura’s smiling face.

Adam chose to stand next to the Gray Man, a choice that allowed him to face the room with his back against the wall.

“Are you enjoying your new job?” Mr. Gray asked politely.

“I am. It’s nice.”

Mr. Gray nodded, and both felt that they had fulfilled the social obligation of small talk.

During times like this, Adam missed Persephone. She was the closest thing he had ever had to a mentor figure — maybe even a parental figure, which was a strange thing to think about Persephone. She had been strange and so much more than the human form could allow, and she had shown Adam that he could choose to be more than the path laid before him.

“You seem troubled,” Mr. Gray said.

Adam looked at the former hit man in surprise. Was he troubled? There was no reason for it. He was at a social gathering with the people he cared about most in the world, and he was in one of the few places where he could be entirely himself — not just Adam the File Clerk or Adam the College Student but instead Adam the Magician.

Yet now that Mr. Gray had pointed it out, he noticed an unsettling in his stomach, a tension in his jaw.

“I work for a law firm, but there’s nothing I can do help the little girl who lives in my neighborhood,” Adam said.

The words shocked him almost as much as they did Mr. Gray, but of course, neither party showed it on their faces.

“I would not think someone like you would let yourself be so limited,” Mr. Gray said after a moment.

“What do you mean?”

“I have seen many things I never imagined since I’ve come to Henrietta,” he said. 

As he spoke, Henry’s mechanical bee hovered around his shoulder. Gansey, a young man who had already died twice, debated with Ronan and Blue about whether a mysterious sauce was supposed to pair with the pastries or the chips. Orla cleared the smoke away from a failed ritual in which she had tried to predict how many birthdays Maura had left while Jimmi, Calla, and Maura all took turns pulling cards from their tarot decks to accurately predict what the next year would hold.

“I see what you mean,” Adam said.

“I’m not sure you do,” Mr. Gray said. “You are one of the things I never imagined. You and your partner. I would think the two of you could do anything.”

There was a time when Adam and Ronan created false evidence to blackmail Mr. Gray’s former boss, but Adam had promised himself he would not go down such a dark road again. Things were supposed to be different now, but perhaps Mr. Gray had a point. He and Ronan had these gifts, these powers.

Surely, that had to mean something.

**Boston, Massachusetts**

What had Adam needed most when he was a scared child in a trailer park?

That was the thought that haunted him the entire drive back to Massachusetts. He went to bed, and the question still bounced around his mind. What had he needed most?

His friends were the main reason he had gotten this far. He had accomplished so much on his own — Aglionby, Harvard — but he knew deep down that he would have drowned in this world without the support of Ronan and Gansey and Blue and even the women at 300 Fox Way, Mr. Gray, and Henry.

Education was important. Getting accepted into Aglionby was what had started him on this journey out of the trailer park in the first place. He never would have met his friends without that first step, and he wouldn’t have gotten this job without his Harvard education.

The magic? How much was that a part of him now? He couldn’t in good conscience recommend sacrificing his hands and eyes to a sentient forest to a little girl.

The question haunted him all during the next week. He tried to focus on his work, but his mind kept wandering to Lucy. What could he offer her? What would he have wanted at that age?

Hope.

The hope that a different life was possible. That more awaited for him down the road.

That was what he really wanted to give her, but a more practical part of him thought of those hungry nights, the childhood colds that had gone untreated, days of stretching out basic toiletries like shampoo and toothpaste.

Slowly, an idea came to him. He mulled over the plan, and after a few days of smoothing out the details, he went to Ronan, who reached for Adam’s hand and agreed.

The next time the two of them found Lucy sitting outside the steps of her apartment building, Ronan gave her a small toy horse unlike any she would ever find. The small figurine moved and neighed as a true horse would without battery or mechanism, and Lucy nearly burst into tears but instead stared in awe at the tiny miracle of a creature.

Adam and Ronan had debated the ethics of giving a little girl a piece of such magic, but they trusted her to understand to keep it hidden. She was a child already familiar with secrets, and Adam and Ronan had one more for her.

They showed her a special place in the apartment building’s laundry room where Adam had stashed a box of nonperishable food, toiletries, and cash. It was hidden behind boxes of dryer sheets, and only Lucy knew about it.

“If you need anything though, we’re here, and you can ask us,” Adam said.

“Even if it seems impossible,” Ronan added, and the little toy horse neighed in Lucy’s hands.

She smiled so big and wrapped her tiny arms around them both. Adam tensed, unsure of what to do, but he gently patted her back. His eyes were wet.

As they walked home that night, Adam and Ronan held hands. They ate leftovers for dinner, and the two of them both sat on the couch. Ronan was feeding Chainsaw bits of cookie with his feet in Adam’s lap while Adam read a book. It was a usual evening for the two of them, but Adam couldn’t help but feel different.

“What we did today,” Adam said. “Do you think we could do it again?”

Ronan paused in his feeding, and Chainsaw peered at Adam with curious eyes. “We could. Do you have someone else in mind?”

“No,” Adam said, but even as the word slipped from his mouth, he thought of the many cases in the law office that he knew would result in nothing.

Ronan seemed to recognize that he needed more time to think over things because he nodded. “If you want to make this a thing we do, then we can. You’re the Magician.”

Magician had always seemed a funny title to Adam, but he supposed the magic of a role as vague as Magician was that he could make it anything he wanted.


End file.
